NON-LOCAL MODELING ON MACROSCOPIC DOMAIN PATTERNS IN PHASE TRANSFORMATION OF NiTi TUBES

Recent experiments revealed many new phenomena of the macroscopic domain patterns in the stress-induced phase transformation of a superelastic polycrystalline NiTi tube during tensile loading. The new phenomena include deformation instability with the formation of a helical domain, domain topology transition from helix to cylinder, domain-front branching and loading-path dependence of domain patterns. In this paper, we model the polycrystal as an elastic continuum with nonconvex strain energy and adopt the non-local strain gradient energy to account for the energy of the diffusive domain front. We simulate the equilibrium domain patterns and their evolution in the tubes under tensile loading by a non-local Finite Element Method （FEM）. It is revealed that the observed loading-path dependence and topology transition of do- main patterns are due to the thermodynamic metastability of the tube system. The computation also shows that the tube-wall thickness has a significant effect on the domain patterns： with fixed material properties and interfacial energy density, a large tube-wall thickness leads to a long and slim helical domain and a severe branching of the cylindrical-domain front.     

Experimental investigation on macroscopic domain formation and evolution in polycrystalline NiTi microtubing under mechanical force

This paper reports the experimental results on macroscopic deformation instability and domain morphology evolution during stress-induced austenite → martensite (A→M) phase transformation in superelastic NiTi polycrystalline shape memory alloy microtubes. High-speed data and image acquisition techniques were used to investigate the dynamic and quasi-static events which took place in a displacement-controlled quasi-static tensile loading/unloading process of the tube. These events include dynamic formation, self-merging, topology transition, convoluted front motion and front instability of a macroscopic deformation domain. The reported phenomena brought up several fundamental issues regarding the roles of macroscopic domain wall energy and kinetics as well as their interplay with the bulk strain energy of the tube in the observed morphology instability and pattern evolution under a mechanical force. These issues are believed to be essential elements in the theoretical modeling of macroscopic deformation patterns in polycrystals and need systematic examination in the future.     

Gravitational collapse of a susy star

The evidence for a positive vacuum energy in our universe suggests that we might be living in a false vacuum destined to ultimately decay to a true vacuum free of dark energy. At present the simplest example of such a universe is one that is exactly supersymmetric (susy). It is expected that the nucleation rate of critically sized susy bubbles will be enhanced in regions of high density such as in degenerate stars. The consequent release of energy stored in Pauli towers provides a possible model for gamma ray bursts. Whether or not all or any of the currently observed bursts are due to this mechanism, it is important to define the signatures of this susy phase transition. After such a burst, due to the lifting of degeneracy pressure, the star would be expected to collapse into a black hole even though its mass is below the Chandrasekhar limit. Previous studies have treated the star as fully releasing its stored energy before the collapse. In this article we make an initial investigation of the effects of the collapse during the gamma ray emission.     

On consistent micromechanical estimation of macroscopic elastic energy,coherence energy and phase transformation strains for SMA materials

An apparatus of micromechanics is used to isolate the key ingredients entering macroscopic Gibbs free energy function of a shape memory alloy (SMA) material. A new self-equilibrated eigenstrains influence moduli (SEIM) method is developed for consistent estimation of effective (macroscopic) thermostatic properties of solid materials, which in microscale can be regarded as amalgams of n-phase linear thermoelastic component materials with eigenstrains. The SEIM satisfy the self-consistency conditions, following from elastic reciprocity (Betti) theorem. The method allowed expressing macroscopic coherency energy and elastic complementary energy terms present in the general form of macroscopic Gibbs free energy of SMA materials in the form of semilinear and semiquadratic functions of the phase composition. Consistent SEIM estimates of elastic complementary energy, coherency energy and phase transformation strains corresponding to classical Reuss and Voigt conjectures are explicitly specified. The Voigt explicit relations served as inspiration for working out an original engineering practice-oriented semiexperimental SEIM estimates. They are especially conveniently applicable for an isotropic aggregate (composite) composed of a mixture of n isotropic phases. Using experimental data for NiTi alloy and adopting conjecture that it can be treated as an isotropic aggregate of two isotropic phases, it is shown that the NiTi coherency energy and macroscopic phase strain are practically not influenced by the difference in values of austenite and martensite elastic constants. It is shown that existence of nonzero fluctuating part of phase microeigenstrains field is responsible for building up of so-called stored energy of coherency, which is accumulated in pure martensitic phase after full completion of phase transition. Experimental data for NiTi alloy show that the stored coherency energy cannot be neglected as it considerably influences the characteristic phase transition temperatures of SMA material.     

Towards the efficient computation of effective properties of microstructured materialsVers le calcul efficace des propriétés effectives de materiaux microstructurés

An algorithm for partially relaxing multiwell energy densities, such as for materials undergoing martensitic phase transitions, is presented here. The detection of the rank-one convex hull, which describes effective properties of such materials, is carried out for the most prominent nontrivial case, namely the so-called T_k-configurations. Despite the fact that the computation of relaxed energies (and with it effective properties) is inherently unstable, we show that the detection of these hulls (T₄-configurations) can be carried out exactly and with high efficiency. This allows in practice for their computation to arbitrary precision. In particular, our approach to detect these hulls is not based on any approximation or grid-like discretization. This makes the approach very different from previous (unstable and computationally expensive) algorithms for the computation of rank-one convex hulls or sequential-lamination algorithms for the simulation of martensitic microstructure. It can be used to improve these algorithms. In cases where there is a strict separation of length scales, these ideas can be integrated at a sub-grid level to macroscopic finite-element computations. The algorithm presented here enables, for the first time, large numbers of tests for T₄-configurations. Stochastic experiments in several space dimensions are reported here. To cite this article: C.-F. Kreiner et al., C. R. Mecanique 332 (2004).     

Macroscopic modelling of transport phenomena in porous media. 2: Applications to mass,momentum and energy transport

In this second paper, the averaging rules presented in Part 1 are employed in order to develop a general macroscopic balance equation and particular equations for mass, mass of a component, momentum and energy, all of a phase in a porous medium domain. These balance equations involve averaged fluxes. Then macroscopic equations are developed for advective, dispersive and diffusive fluxes, all in terms of averaged state variables of the system. These are combined with the macroscopic balance equations to yield field equations that serve as the core of the mathematical models that describe the transport of extensive quantities in a porous medium domain. It is shown that the methodology of averaging leads to a better understanding of the effective stress concept employed in dealing with transport phenomena in deformable porous media.     

Micromechanical model of nonlinear deformation of shape memory alloys under phase and structure transitions

We propose a model of nonlinear deformation of shape memory alloys (SMA) under phase and structure transitions which reflects the basic characteristics of the phenomena that occur in these materials at the microlevel. The model takes account of the influence on the processes in SMA not only of the applied external macroscopic stresses but also of the microstresses randomly distributed in the material volume under study, with the characteristics of these distributions (mathematical expectation and root mean square deviation) treated as material constants. We also demonstrate that the results predicted by the model agree well with the experimental data for nickel titanium alloy samples.     

马氏体相变过程中形核、失稳及多界面微结构的动力学模拟

材料发生相变的过程中会出现失稳、滞后回线及多界面的微结构等复杂现象，而稳定性的丧失使其动力学方程的求解十分困难。对于形状记忆合金中的马氏体相变，相变过程中材料的等效杨氏模量变为负值，使得传统的动力学方程成为病态的，无法直接求解，必须要进行正则化。而相变的滞后回线与微结构的出现也说明经典的弹性理论不再适用，必须要引入新的能量项以能刻画这些现象。本文在非线性弹性理论的框架下，引入应变梯度界面能和位移非均匀能，利用变分原理建立了材料相变的一维动力学模型。高阶项的引入极大地改善了方程的性质，使数值求解成为可能。计算结果表明，该模型确能较有效地描述相变时的失稳与微结构。     

Flow-induced nonequilibrium thermodynamics of lamellar semicrystalline polymers

In this work we present a first attempt to quantify the effect of flow deformation on the microstructure of semicrystalline polymers. This necessitates bridging the macroscopic flow length scale with the microscopic (segment) length scale of the semicrystalline structure. To achieve this connection we developed a hierarchical approach where a thermodynamically consistent macroscopic constitutive equation is interfaced with a microscopic lattice-based Monte Carlo (MC) simulation of the polymer chain conformation. We first illustrate this approach in a two-dimensional (2D) “toy” application where the 2D equivalent of a macroscopic constitutive equation based on reptation theory is applied to describe the chain deformation and extended free energy in the amorphous bulk phase. The values for the derivative of the free energy with respect to the mean segment orientation tensor, calculated for a planar extensional flow, are then used as an extended nonequilibrium thermodynamic forcing term. This is added in a traditional Metropolis Monte Carlo scheme, developed for a 2D lattice representation of a lamellar semicrystalline polymer, to drive the flow-induced microstructure. Significant flow-induced changes are calculated, steadily increasing as the Weissenberg number increases.We subsequently extend these ideas further in a much more realistic three-dimensional (3D) application where the information for the thermodynamics of the bulk amorphous phase under a uniaxial extensional flow is extracted from a macroscopic network model, such as that of Phan-Thien and Tanner (PTT), connecting the free energy to the second moment of the end-to-end distance of a multisegment chain. Through a series of 3D nonequilibrium Monte Carlo simulations of both the amorphous and the semicrystalline microscopic morphologies, it is shown that the interaction of the flow-induced deformation with the semicrystalline microstructure is nonlinear: the amorphous interlamellar structure changes significantly from its corresponding homogeneous bulk amorphous state, even far away from the crystalline interface. Our approach allows for a quantitative estimation of this effect on both thermodynamic quantities, like the extended microscopic free energy, as well as various statistics of the chain conformations.     

Non-linearity in rheology —an essay of classification

Different non-linear phenomena (such as non-Newtonian flow, large elastic deformations, instabilities of different types and many others) are the heart of rheology. Therefore many attempts were carried out to find quantitative, or at least qualitative, models of non-linear behavior. The general or perhaps most attractive way of developing rheological constitutive equations consists in the search for the most general method to describe everything in the framework of a single approach. Naturally, this leads to very complicated and ambiguous equations. Meanwhile, it is reasonable to try another way based on separating observed phenomena into different types depending on observed phenomena into different types depending on their physical origin. An attempt to propose such their physical origin. An attempt to propose such classification of nonlinear rheological effects is made.According to the assumed scheme three levels of non-linearity are distinguished. There is a group of phenomena which originate as a consequence of finite elastic deformations. This is weak non-linearity related to equilibrium properties of a matter. The second level can be characterized as strong non-linearity. It is related to reversible structure changes, developing in time and connected with changes in relaxation properties of a matter. This group of effects can be treated as kinetic phenomena. Lastly, the third level of non-linearity is connected with breaking or phase transitions induced by deformations. This leads to the most severe consequences and can be treated as effects of thermodynamic nature. It is shown that some well known rheological effects can be explained if we consider them as a superposition of non-linearity of different types.Presented as keynote lecture at the European Rheology Meeting, September 4–9, 1994, Sevilla, Spain     

A thermodynamic model of physical gels

Physical gels are characterized by dynamic cross-links that are constantly created and broken, changing its state between solid and liquid under influence of environmental factors. This restructuring ability of physical gels makes them an important class of materials with many applications, such as in drug delivery. In this article, we present a thermodynamic model for physical gels that considers both the elastic properties of the network and the transient nature of the cross-links. The cross-links’ reformation is captured through a connectivity tensor M at the microscopic level. The macroscopic quantities, such as the volume fraction of the monomer ?, number of monomers per cross-link s, and the number of cross-links per volume q, are defined by statistic averaging. A mean-field energy functional for the gel is constructed based on these variables. The equilibrium equations and the stress are obtained at the current state. We study the static thermodynamic properties of physical gels predicted by the model. We discuss the problems of un-constrained swelling and stress driven phase transitions of physical gels and describe the conditions under which these phenomena arise as functions of the bond activation energy E_a, polymer/solvent interaction parameter χ, and external stress p.     

A phenomenological description of shape memory alloy transformation induced plasticity

Transformation induced plasticity is defined as the plastic flow arising from solid state phase transformation processes involving volume and/or shape changes without overlapping the yield surface. This phenomenon occurs in shape memory alloys (SMAs) having significant influence over their macroscopic thermomechanical behavior. This contribution presents a macroscopic three-dimensional constitutive model to describe the thermomechanical behavior of SMAs including classical and transformation induced plasticity. Comparisons between numerical and experimental results attest the model capability to capture plastic phenomena. Both uniaxial and multiaxial simulations are carried out.     

Phase transitions induced by extension in a slender SMA cylinder: Analytical solutions for the hysteresis loop based on a quasi-3D continuum model

In this paper, we propose a quasi-3D continuum model to study the rate-independent hysteresis phenomenon in phase transitions of a slender shape memory alloy (SMA) cylinder subject to the uniaxial tension. Based on the three-dimensional field equations and the traction-free boundary conditions, by using a coupled series-asymptotic expansion method, we manage to express the total elastic potential energy of the cylinder in terms of the leading order term of the axial strain. We further consider the rate-independent dissipation effect in a purely one-dimensional setting. The mechanical dissipation functions are also expressed in terms of the axial strain. The equilibrium configuration of the cylinder is then determined by using the principle of maximizing the total energy dissipation. An illustrative example with some special chosen material constants is further considered. Free end boundary conditions are proposed at the two ends of the cylinder. By conducting a phase plane analysis and through some calculations, we obtain the analytical solutions of the equilibrium equation. We find that the engineering stress–strain curves corresponding to the obtained solutions can capture some important features of the experimental results. It appears that the analytical results obtained in this paper reveal the multiple solutions nature of the problem and shed certain light on the instability phenomena during the phase transition process.     

On Landau theory and symmetric energy landscapes for phase transitions

The aim of this presentation is the development of a general approach for modelling the global complex energy landscapes of phase transitions. For the sake of clarity and brevity the exposition is restricted to martensitic phase transition (i.e., diffusionless phase transitions in crystalline solids). The methods, however, are more broadly applicable. Explicit energy functions are derived for the cubic-to-tetragonal phase transition, where data are fitted for InTl. Another example is given for the cubic-to-monoclinic transition in CuZnAl. The resulting energies are defined globally, in a piecewise manner. We use splines that are twice continuously differentiable to ensure sufficient smoothness. The modular (piecewise) technique advocated here allows for modelling elastic moduli, energy barriers and other characteristics independent of each other.     

Multi-scale modelling and canonical dual finite element method in phase transitions of solids

This paper presents a multi-scale model in phase transitions of solid materials with both macro and micro effects. This model is governed by a semi-linear nonconvex partial differential equation which can be converted into a coupled quadratic mixed variational problem by the canonical dual transformation method. The extremality conditions of this variational problem are controlled by a triality theory, which reveals the multi-scale effects in phase transitions. Therefore, a potentially useful canonical dual finite element method is proposed for the first time to solve the nonconvex variational problems in multi-scale phase transitions of solids. Applications are illustrated. Results shown that the canonical duality theory developed by the first author in nonconvex mechanics can be used to model complicated physical phenomena and to solve certain difficult nonconvex variational problems in an easy way. The canonical dual finite element method brings some new insights into computational mechanics.     

Evolution of mesoscopic granular clusters in comminution systems: a structural mechanics model of grain breakage and force chain buckling

A major scientific challenge in establishing a micromechanics theory for complex materials is the characterisation and modelling of emergent mesoscopic phenomena. This study demonstrates the key elements of a structural mechanics approach to the modelling of mesoscopic dissipative phenomena in comminution systems where grain breakage and force chain buckling coexist. Given the many degrees of freedom in these systems, there are multitude of possible configurations and configurational transitions accessible even for a small particle cluster (e.g. a particle and its immediate neighbours). Here, we develop a model of the evolution of a 6-particle cluster undergoing breakage and force chain buckling, in sequence. The analysis lays bare the intricate connections between the contact topology, the relative kinematics arising from the interactions of particles at the bonded versus non-bonded contacts, and the collective dynamics of these interactions as the cluster is monotonically compressed under confinement. The stress-displacement response profiles at the cluster scale exhibit qualitatively similar properties to those seen in macroscopic assemblies under confined compression. A parametric analysis is undertaken to explore the effects of grain-scale resistances to breakage and buckling with respect to the overall force-displacement behaviour of the granular cluster. The study casts light on open problems for future research into the micromechanics of emergent cluster behaviour germane to comminution systems.